BWM0000 31/8/2015

Introduction

These web pages are designed to provide an inventory of War Memorials in Berkshire

It is organised first by district and then by parish/town. Other settlements and hamlets will be dealt with under
their Civil Parish name or district name if unparished.

At the parish/town level there will be a page which identifies all the known memorials within the area and may provide pictures or descriptions of all these memorials. Alternatively, especially where an area has a large number of memorials, the area page merely lists sites and you can click on their name to see more detail about each individual memorial.

In this survey we are including any or all of the following:

Official Town and Village War Memorials (generally referred to as Monument)
Lists of names of the fallen inside churches and other buildings
Muster lists of those who served
Commonwealth War Graves Commission graves within civil and ecclesiastical cemeteries
Memorials to men of particular military units

The structure may be used to direct you to other resources within the several villages and towns in Berkshire, so you may find links to their Wi9kipedia entry or to the home pages of village and local group web sites from the relevant District or Parish pages

So let's start at the District/Borough Level (we include areas formerly administered by Berkshire County Council)

This site run by Phil Wood will give you details of all the memorials in West Berkshire with details of the men commemorated.

Most towns and villages have their war memorial, usually dating from the First World War and added to for the Second World War. In many cases the churches too have their memorials and often there is a Roll of Honour which lists all the names of men from that area who served, whereas the main memorials list only those who died. However there are many other memorials and one of our objectives is to identify all these others.

Just for starters consider:-

Schools - both primary and secondary
Factories and places of work
Hospitals
Offices
Private and family memorials, eg windows, plaques in churches
Names added to parent's gravestones
Graves of men who fell in a war (for WW1 and WW2 these are managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
Graves of men who served and died after the war
Military establishments

It is not just the two World Wars we are interested in. There are memorials going back to the Civil War in the 17th Century and right up to date from all sorts of other conflicts. Most villages and churches have both First and Second World War memorialss. We have one page which will take you to memorials of other conflicts CLICK HERE such as :- Civil War, Culloden, Zulu Wars, 2nd Afghan War, Sudan Campaign, Boer War, Korean War, Falklands War

How to Participate

We welcome any contributions from people across the County. You may wish to design your own village page and provide a link to your own website to give the extra details. If you would like us to display your information on this website then we suggest you construct a document containing the name of your village and of the memorial and then any or all of the following:-

pictures of your memorial
details of the men listed on the memorial
names of contacts who are researching the memorial
who is responsible for the memorial
details of booklets or leaflets
a report on the current state of the memorial

It is best if you produce a pdf document, but we can accept WORD documents as well and we will convert them to pdf. We will then post your document on this website. If you send a pdf you can include links to your own or other websites, but you must spell out the url in full, starting with http://www. So long as you are not defamatory you can include anything you like on your page.

Then e-mail the document to john.chapman@purley.eu and we will do the rest.

Some Explanations

And finally a few words about some of the cryptic numbers you may notice on the pages and the way we are tackling the project.
At the top or bottom of each page there will be a reference such as BWMxxxx and a date. This is a private key to the area, Civil Parish or town. A number of hamlets and villages form part of a neighbouring parish and their details are included on their Civil Parish page. The first numeral indicates the District, eg 1 for Slough or 8 for Bracknell

Against some of the memorials listed you may see a reference like WM5xxx. This is a reference to the memorial itself and is an extension of the system used in the book 'Silent Cities' which listed all the CWGC memorials world wide.

WM0001 to WM2999 refer to CWGC cemeteries worldwide
WM3000 to WM3099 refer to CWGC official memorials
WM4000 to WM4999 refer to cemeteries and Churchyards in the UK and Ireland where men are buried in CWGC graves
WM5000 to WM5999 refer to village and town memorials in the UK and Ireland
WM6000 to WM6999 refer to individual or family memorials
WM7000 to WM7999 refer to lists of names published, for example, in local newspapers
WM8000 to WM8999 refer to memorials from outside Berkshire that have links either to Berkshire men or Berkshire regiments
WM9000 to WM9899 refer to sections of very large memorials that have been split for a variety of reasons

In addition,Individual memorials within West Berkshire have also been allocated a quite separate identification in the form WBxxx. These are recorded in greater details on the West Berkshire War memorials
site.
We are grateful to Alan Hutchins of the Berkshire Family History Society who painstakingly recorded the vast majority of names on Berkshire War Memorials. Also to Phil Wood who has assembled the West Berkshire site and taken many photographs. Also to many other people who have researched their local memorials, many of whom have published booklets. Where known these names and details are included on the parish pages.

Phases of the Project

There are a number of phases to this project as follows:-

Phase 1 - Setting up pages for each of the towns and villages in Berkshire - This has been completed although many pages are still in an old style. These are being converted to a consistent new style

Phase 2 - Inserting the list of locations and individual memorials in each parish. This has been largely completed although we come across new memorials on a regular basis.

Phase 3 - Adding photographs and descriptions on the memorials and names of researchers that we are aware of

Phase 4 - Adding links to pages to take you to village memorials as provided by local researchers

Phase 5 - Putting the names from memorials into the data base

Phase 6 - Identifying the men listed and checking their CWGC entry

Phase 7 - Publishing the list of names and the basic details of the men